36 - Dragon Dance

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Help the Heavens cover for a missing goddess at her temple festival.
When: March 18
Where: Near the Sensou-ji temple in Asakusa
Summary: After Kannon's disappearance last year, the Heavens are concerned that things might go wrong at her temple's March 18 omikoshi festival. They've asked new gods and shinki to attend the festival and keep an eye out for trouble. Meanwhile, trusted newcomers and older gods and shinki alike are watching over the cultists that have been identified.






The Festival

Shrine-carriers, musicians and dancers congregate early in the morning in their matching outfits to get organized into their parade. Luckily, all of the parade participants this time are alive and well. There aren't even any troublesome ayakashi hanging around... so why is everyone having such bad luck?! Laces are breaking, costumes tearing, small children are getting sick from nerves, and even the drums seem to have gone out of tune. It looks like this parade is going to need a whole lot of help to prevent disaster.

For those who aren't busy with the parade preparations, food and souvenir booths throng the area in front of the temple. There's traveling games, too, and plenty of people showing up early with their families to find a good spot to watch the parade. This is one of Tokyo's most popular temples, so it's quite a crowd!

The Stakeouts

Any gods or shinki who were told about the cult problem by Amaterasu -- or anyone who might have heard from friends and allies about the plans -- can help Amaterasu's shinki keep a tight watch on all of the known cult members. Her shinki are looking for any sign of the young gods who she believes are behind all of this trouble, but are there other clues that might be found by a keen observer? Join in on staking out a cult member, and see what you can see.

Current cult members that the shinki are watching include:

• Mitsui Ryou - lives alone in a medium-sized apartment, appears to work a 9 - 5 schedule with occasional late nights.
• Imai Takeru - lives in a small two-story house by himself, has an unpredictable schedule.
• Shimoda Tsuki - lives alone in a small apartment with a lot of plants, works retail with varying shifts.
• Oota Saburo- lives in a medium-sized apartment with his wife and two young children, works a 9 - 5 schedule with frequent work trips.
• Maeda Shinnosuke - lives alone in a small, messy apartment, works construction (early mornings, long days.)
If your character is taking part in the surveillance of any of these people, please feel free to comment to the Cult Clues thread below with the name of the character they're watching, and the times that they're watching that character, in order to learn what they might see. (Note: surveillance doesn't have to take place only on the 18th. Characters can take part in watching the cult members at any time after Amaterasu's announcement on March 8.)

The Parade

At noon, the parade begins. Misfortune is still dogging the participants and the crowds around them, but it looks as though everything will go all right up until the final turn as the heavy, gilded shrine turns back towards the main temple building, tips, and slowly falls over sideways, straight for the crowd.

What's worse, when the shrine hits the ground, it cracks open -- and a huge, jellyfish-like ayakashi wearing a giant white mask with a single black eye inscribed on it heaves its way out and begins lashing its tentacles in every direction. People stung by the tentacles are driven into a furious frenzy, and fights are breaking out everywhere. Stop the humans from fighting, take care of the injured, and destroy the ayakashi before the situation gets any worse.

The Pursuit

In the middle of the fighting crowd, two white-robed shinki are chasing after a very average-looking salaryman in a tan coat. He doesn't seem to know that the shinki are chasing him, but he is moving fast, and they're in danger of losing track of him. They're calling out to any Far Shore denizen close enough to hear, shinki or god:

"Don't let that guy get away! He knows what happened!"

Anyone who has met or spent time staking out Mitsui Ryou will recognize him as the escaping salaryman. If your character takes part in the pursuit, please comment to the Cult Clues thread with a link to your thread - the character who successfully catches Mitsui will be determined by RNG on January 6, 2019.

In Summary:

• Attend the Sensou-ji festival
• Enjoy food and games
• Help Amaterasu's shinki stake out the cult
• Fight a masked ayakashi
• Have fun~

Comments

[fortunesmiles]

"Well, I suppose it's getting ahead of ourselves to suggest that we may be able to spy on them in such a way that we can't be detected, considering they have more experience with the heavens and the powers we have at our disposal than we do..." Komaeda taps a finger against his cheek. "But that still does only apply if we are detected, and they work out what we're trying to achieve."

He smiles slightly. "But also, would their realizing that we suspect one of them be such a bad thing? After all, if being observed by us alarmed one of her shinki enough that they would change their behavior in some way...wouldn't that be telling in itself? We might even provoke an emotional response Amaterasu could sense, if we were really lucky...

"And either way, how could the gods complain? At the very worst, they would view our efforts as being wasted. But unless they can prove the innocence of all of Amaterasu's shinki, surely they can't object to harmless observation in the form of a private investigation...especially if they don't believe Amaterasu and her shinki have anything to hide. They surely don't consider us above suspicion."

[kokuyoyo]

Interesting... Unfortunately. It's starting to feel like Komaeda might be something useful, despite how much distaste Chikua has for the man. Well, he guesses he'll have to deal with it.

He's pretty sure it's not the first time he's had to.

"So what you're saying... is that we should increase the pressure on her shinki until their emotions or actions become too much for even the god to ignore. And that the gods should have nothing to say on that... Because we'd only be observing, and that's nothing big... So long as supposedly innocent parties are truly innocent." Just to get it all out there in the open for the two of them.

"We'll need a unified group effort for something like that..."

[fortunesmiles]

"Well, I wasn't saying we should, necessarily, so much as that it might naturally happen in the course of investigating," Komaeda demurs, with a light laugh. "But there's no guarantee, after all. The traitor might be a cool customer who can play it off, so there's no point making it our plan of attack to pressure them into tipping off Amaterasu. We can simply observe - and if our suspect starts to realize they're being watched, and if they crack under the pressure, that will be a convenient bonus for us." He smiles brightly at Chikusa. "Other than that, though, you've got it!

"And we probably would need quite a group to coordinate. But is it so unreasonable to think we may be able to put one together? Finding new gods and shinki who are suspicious of, not to mention disillusioned and impatient with, the old gods...you likely can't throw a stone in the heavens without hitting one."

[kokuyoyo]

"That's not wrong..." Chikusa, after all, lives in a temple that is full of nothing but people who distrust authority figures just as a rule of thumb. Heaven's stubbornness and ineptitude, at least so much as they see it, only reinforces the feelings which were already there.

"But getting people to cooperate... And getting them to share their information regularly in case they suddenly disappear.. That's the more difficult part."

[fortunesmiles]

"That's certainly true...and it won't be easy to pool that information in any case. We'd need to take precautions that our actions couldn't be misconstrued as some sort of offense to Amaterasu or her shinki...which, I think, would either call for total transparency or total secrecy. Secrecy is obvious enough; no one can take offense at us spying on her shinki, looking for the traitor, if no one knows we're doing it. Transparency would be if we openly stated our intentions to monitor her shinki, if not actively sought her permission to do so. At worst, we'd be accused of not trusting her word or the word of her shinki, or she'd feel like we're wasting our time...but considering there's a traitor in the heavens, it should be reasonable enough to argue that trust is a luxury we can't afford, and that guaranteeing what we've been told is simply a precaution. There's a possibility she'll be unreasonable about it, but public opinion may pressure her to comply.

"But whether we operate in secrecy or in public, we won't be able to use the network to coordinate. We can't guarantee who has access to what messages, after all...so we'd have to meet in person to exchange information. And such gatherings, especially if we're operating in secret, could be misconstrued as some sort of conspiracy on our parts..."

He shakes his head. "You're right; it's going to be very difficult."

[kokuyoyo]

"People are such a nuisance..." Yes, because that's clearly the problem here. Chikusa is pretty sure he's not wrong, on some level. Whatever bullshit Heaven might feed itself, they're still people in the end... and still corrupt, as far as he's concerned. So all of this is mostly their fault to begin with. Sighing, he starts to turn away.

"It'd be easier if we could figure out how they have their network system set up here... It reaches further than regular human technology..."

[fortunesmiles]

"That would certainly be convenient," Komaeda agrees, with a chuckle. "But we can be sure they won't tell us, right? And to be fair, I don't know if they'd be wrong that letting the new gods and shinki have a way of privately communicating en masse is a bad idea...the divide, and the distrust, between the old and the new in the heavens is only growing. I'm not sure an echo chamber where we can vent and share our frustrations with the old gods without reserve wouldn't sow the seeds of some kind of outright rebellion. And as satisfying and exciting as that would be in the short term, I'm not sure that any kind of rebellion against the old gods would be a good idea just yet..."

He presses his fingertips together thoughtfully. "I wonder if any of the new gods or their shinki have powers that would allow us to pass messages between ourselves more effectively?" He pauses, tilting his head. "You know, entirely aside from all this, knowing what our fellow gods and shinki can do in terms of what powers they have might not be a bad thing...I'm sure some abilities could be enhanced by using them in combination with others, for instance. But I don't think I know the special powers of any gods or shinki outside of my own and my shinki's..."

[kokuyoyo]

"I don't see how much different that is between now..." Chikusa rolls his neck a little bit, feeling out the various cracks that happen as a natural consequence of horrible fucking posture. "But I guess the rare few times the old guard use the network... That's enough to deter some people." Granted, Chikusa isn't one of those people, having said in public earshot of Amaterasu's shinki that he thinks they're worthless, but, well.

Some people care a little more about authority figures.

"As for other gods... Who knows? You could ask people about that kind of thing... but there are a lot of people who won't give away that kind of information for free so easily, even if there were benefits..."

Says a similar kind of person.

[fortunesmiles]

"Well, it's not like we can make people share information, or stop them from pursuing separate lines of inquiry on their own..." says Komaeda, who has definitely been that kind of person himself in the past. Really, he and Chikusa definitely have some things in common. "But it's nonetheless a fact that all of us new gods and shinki are in the same boat, no matter what our personal desires or motives are. Anything that helps us figure out how we got here or who's attacking us ultimately benefits all of us. It's probably too much to expect that everyone will appreciate that, but...what else can we do but make that kind of appeal, and give those with the inclination to share the opportunity?"

[kokuyoyo]

"...I mean, we could definitely do some things, but apparently people frown upon those methods." And torture doesn't really lend itself well to cooperation anyway. Genuine cooperation. "Think you have enough charisma to make that appeal...?"

The way Chikusa slowly looks over Komaeda says he sure as hell doubts it.

[fortunesmiles]

Komaeda laughs outright in such a way that it's obvious he's not that delusional. "Oh, no! People don't tend to like me much. I more meant it as a group appeal, or an appeal to common sense or our shared interest...though if it came down to needing to have someone present the idea, I suppose a well-respected or charismatic spokesperson would be best. Or, at the very least, someone well-known in the heavens..."

Truth be told, the first person who comes to mind for Komaeda is Hakkai. A shame that complications are such that the idea isn't feasible.

[kokuyoyo]

Having actually lived with Cho Hakkai for any extent of time, that in fact isn't the first person Chikusa thinks of. Instead, his mind idly wanders until he makes a faint noise of idea. "It should be a girl."

...Sure a suggestion there.